A King’s education to a global audience

Anna Wood is the Director of King’s Online. She brings to the role more than ten years of leadership experience in higher education.

I joined King’s Online at a really exciting time, at the start of 2016. King’s has been running online and distance education programmes for years in some faculties, and we have been offering MOOCs through FutureLearn. One of our MOOCs that ran recently, The Internet of Things, has had in excess of 30,000 students, with the content and delivery mode being really well received.

Online learning is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Different types of learners engage in online education for many different reasons and purposes. In the US, online course enrolment in higher education has been growing at a more rapid rate than overall university enrolments (Allen & Seaman, 2013). Now other universities and countries across the globe are beginning to offer courses online or considering the option of doing so.

King’s is one of the first Russell Group universities to commit to providing a high quality postgraduate education online and and we have big growth ambitions in this area in the coming years.

Our Principal Ed Byrne has a rich appreciation of the value of online education – a flexible delivery mode that will open up a King’s education to a global audience. His vision for King’s to expand its online learning offering paved the way for King’s Online, and this year, we have developed two fully online Master’s degree programmes. We have a dedicated team – Instructional Design and Development – who work closely with academics to ensure that the quality of the programme is equivalent to the quality of education delivered on campus.

King’s is a fantastic institution – recognised for its world-leading research, teaching and rigorous approach to academic endeavours. In coming years, King’s will also be recognised for its cutting edge, world leading online education offering. Our online programmes are being developed with the same academic rigour, delivered by the same leading academic experts, with the support of a team of experts in online learning theory.

King’s Online is an important endeavour for King’s and one that I’m proud to be leading.